Bishop Paprocki: Abp Chaput is right to deny Communion to ‘remarried’ Catholics

[Bishop Paprocki and Archbishop Chaput are out in the cold in their relation with the current zeitgeist and their possibility for advancement (in one way or another). The bishop got passed over for the Chicago archdiocese, which went to Blase Cupich, who along with Cardinal Wuerl are on the Vatican Congregation for Bishops, which vets episcopal appointments and advancements. Despite having Pope Francis at the Philadelphia World Meeting of Families, Archbishop Chaput will not get a red hat at the next consistory, because there won’t be enough to around – especially for the United States: Definitely one (for Cupich) and possibly a second (for a large Hispanic archdiocese in California such as Gomez in Los Angeles or McElroy in San Diego).]

Clare Chretien

SPRINGFIELD, Illinois, July 18, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — A Catholic bishop simultaneously skewered those celebrating supposed changes in Church doctrine and defended a fellow bishop who instructed Catholics in his diocese to follow the Church’s teaching on sexual morality.

Responding to a “misleading” Associated Press article that ran in Illinois’ State Journal-Register, Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, wrote in the same newspaper that the guidelines Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput issued on proper disposition to receive Holy Communion “are certainly correct” because they uphold Biblical teaching.

The AP article pitted Chaput’s actions against Pope Francis. The article said Chaput “is closing the door opened by Pope Francis to letting civilly remarried Catholics receive Communion, saying the faithful in his archdiocese can only do so if they abstain from sex and live ‘as brother and sister.'”

Earlier this month, Chaput issued diocesan guidelines for the implementation of Pope Francis’ controversial exhortation Amoris Laetitia, which many Catholic theologians and philosophers have warned could undermine the Church’s moral teaching.

“As with all magisterial documents, Amoris Laetitia is best understood when read within the tradition of the Church’s teaching and life,” Chaput wrote, and the document should be read in continuity with the Church’s longstanding teaching that divorced and civilly remarried Catholics may receive Holy Communion provided they live as “brother and sister.”

“As I explained in my statement about the Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Francis on April 8, the date it was issued, ‘There are no changes to canon law or church doctrine introduced in this document,’” Paprocki wrote. “I addressed this conclusion in greater detail in my column in our diocesan newspaper, the Catholic Times, on May 1, explaining that in-flight press conferences on an airplane, apostolic exhortations and footnotes ‘by their very nature are not vehicles for introducing or amending legislative texts or making dogmatic pronouncements.’”

Paprocki pointed to St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, when the apostle wrote, “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself” (1 Cor 11:27-29).

Canon 915 teaches that those “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church also teaches that anyone “conscious of [having committed] grave sin” should not receive Holy Communion until he or she has repented and been to the Sacrament of Confession (CCC 1385).

The guidelines that Chaput issued apply “not only in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, but also here in the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois … [and] elsewhere in the Church,” Paprocki wrote.

Other prelates have not been so clear. Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich called Amoris Laetitia a “game-changer” that could potentially normalize the influential bishop’s approach of giving Holy Communion to the divorced and civilly remarried.

In January, Paprocki publicly corrected Cupich after he claimed that those in actively adulterous or homosexual relationships could receive Holy Communion based on their “consciences.”

Paprocki has a history of defending orthodoxy and Catholic teaching. In 2013, he stopped a group of activists from praying a “blasphemous” pro-gay rosary inside a cathedral.

Later that year, with “great reluctance,” Paprocki held a rare public exorcism as the governor of Illinois signed a law redefining marriage to include same-sex couples.

“I did not seek to enter any controversy and I don’t relish being part of one,” he said at the time. “But I have given this matter a great deal of thought and prayer, which has led me to the conviction that God is calling me to speak out and conduct these prayers.”

Paprocki has decried transgender activists for turning “common sense on its head.” He has asked that people respect the Catholic Church’s “clear” teachings on human sexuality and gender in their use of diocesan facilities. Paprocki has also worked to maintain the identity and integrity of Catholic schools in the Diocese of Springfield by ensuring children are taught the Catholic faith regardless of their parents’ lifestyles.

“Catholics … have a free choice: if they persist in sexual activity outside of valid marriage, they must refrain from taking Holy Communion; if they wish to receive Holy Communion, they must refrain from sexual activity outside of valid marriage,” concluded Paprocki. “The latter may seem impossible to those steeped in our sex-saturated culture, but ‘with God, all things are possible’ (Matthew 19:26).”

7 comments on “Bishop Paprocki: Abp Chaput is right to deny Communion to ‘remarried’ Catholics”

Thank God some bishops are putting up resistance. All the rest share in the sin of sacrilege.

While Chaput is touting the chimerical “living as brother and sister,” at least he is upholding the fundamental issue. However, divorced couples living together “chastely” is a scandal and can’t be allowed to be a norm. Where are their true spouses? Are they responsible to their children? The answer, of course, is no. A responsible dad does not shack up with a woman who is not the mother of his children while she is still living. If he can separate from his real wife, how come he can’t separate from his play wife?

I figure there are some who can pull it off, but usually those are virtuous folks who have been put in a difficult situation. For an average guy with normal temptations who already went through one wife and, not being able to stay single, shacked up with a bed partner — it ain’t gonna last.

If somehow he and she get an infusion of virtue and desire to live chastely, they will move apart because they’ll realize what they’re doing is a temptation, is wrong and scandalous.

A crafty Jesuit shows us how AL is a logical extension of Familiaris Consortio exactly because of this bro&sis thing:

So in “Familiaris Consortio” the de facto norm does not apply always and in all cases. In the situation described there is already an “epieikeia” concerning the application of the law in a concrete case, because if continence eliminates the sin of adultery, it nevertheless does not suppress the contradiction between the conjugal rupture with the formation of a new couple – who nonetheless live bonds of an affective character and of coexistence – and the Eucharist.

In other words, FC rewards the couple who have broken marriage bonds yet have joined together to play house. The crafty Jesuit then pronounces the magic word “epieikeia” to describe Wojtyla’s novel exception supplying the opening for Francis’ atrocity.

(epieikeia: interpretation of a law of the Roman Catholic Church that presumes it not applicable in a case of hardship felt to violate natural law – Merriam Webster, possibly a weak definition?)